And I remember a president who downplayed it and called it a hoax, I remember a governor who encouraged people to go out to eat after we knew better, what's your point? Also, your article does not at all support your claim of "health officials who claimed that acknowledging the virus was xenophobic".

Here is what the article actually said, which, as it turns out, was extremely precedent in light of anti-Asian-American violence that we have seen.

> “While it is understandable for some New Yorkers to be concerned about the novel coronavirus situation, we cannot stand for racist and stigmatizing rhetoric, or for myths and half-truths about the virus. The best precaution you can take is to practice what you would during any flu season: Wash your hands, cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze, and please stay home if you’re feeling unwell. The Health Department is committed to separating the facts from fear, and we encourage all New Yorkers to do the same.”

> Dr. Henry Chen, president of SOMOS, said although risks of infection in New York remains low, he is gravely concerned by the increased xenophobia against the Asian American population, specifically the Chinese community.

>And I remember a president who downplayed it and called it a hoax

Trump called the Democratic criticism of the administration's response to COVID19 a "hoax", not the virus itself. https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/oct/08/ask-politifac...

Yes, on Feb 28…Trump did not realize the true danger of the Coronavirus.

=======

“The basis for the claim is a comment President Donald Trump made at a rally in South Carolina on Feb. 28, when he was complaining about Democrats’ attacks on him and his administration.

Here’s what Trump said:”

"Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that right? Coronavirus, they’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa. They can’t even count. No, they can’t. They can’t count their votes.

> and many other health officials who claimed that acknowledging the virus was xenophobic.

Can you source this? I would be absolutely shocked if any public health officials of note said that even acknowledging the virus was xenophobic.

You mention these memories in the context of having the internet available so we don't forget. And yet you don't provide any links to the source material you post?

To which quote are you referring?

“ When people play off stereotypes, it distracts from the real risks and can lead to misperception and misinformation about the source of the virus. We are grateful to stand with the mayor, city elected officials and community leaders to ensure we eliminate any stigma with the virus, continue public outreach efforts, and educate the public of the real risks,” Chen said.

“While it is understandable for some New Yorkers to be concerned about the novel coronavirus situation, we cannot stand for racist and stigmatizing rhetoric, or for myths and half-truths about the virus. The best precaution you can take is to practice what you would during any flu season: Wash your hands, cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze, and please stay home if you’re feeling unwell. The Health Department is committed to separating the facts from fear, and we encourage all New Yorkers to do the same.”

This basically turned into “it’s just the flu, if you think it is more, you are playing into the racism rhetoric”.

Look, I don’t care which side of the country was right, but ignoring the mistakes we made feels like we are setting ourselves up for falling for the same traps.

We had no government warnings in the middle of February so perhaps the Asian community was feeling attacked? Someone in the government knew the real danger but most were never warned

A month later a Republican Congressman was actively downplaying the advice of the CDC.

March 15

“Representative Devin Nunes, a California Republican, on Sunday encouraged healthy people to dine out at restaurants, contradicting public health advisories that strongly encouraged social distancing and discouraged Americans from attending mass gatherings.“

This article is dated February 14th. The US had only declared an emergency two weeks earlier on January 31st. At the time, there had only been a handful of deaths and passengers had not yet disembarked the Diamond Princess.

It seems you’re similarly rewriting history in describing this event as “mid-pandemic”.

much of what people remember was actually referring to the Muslim ban that happened at the same time.

https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/13120-2

And you are correct, people from both parties played down the virus well into March. Mardi Gras wasn’t canceled at the end of February.

These people simply didn’t know how dangerous the Coronavirus was.

> These people simply didn’t know how dangerous the Coronavirus was.

I'd be forgiving on that as we've had several pandemic scares before that panned out to nothing in the US.

Many public officials did not know the seriousness of the Coronavirus.

Even Republican officials told Americans to go out and dine.

===============

March 15, 2020

“Representative Devin Nunes, a California Republican, on Sunday encouraged healthy people to dine out at restaurants, contradicting public health advisories that strongly encouraged social distancing and discouraged Americans from attending mass gatherings.“

By March 7-15, cautious companies etc. were widely shutting things down. A month earlier basically nothing was happening anywhere in the West.

What I remember of it was calling it the "china flu" was racist/xenophobic. Now, however, it's fine to call it the Brazilian Strain or the UK Strain or the South African Strain. None of any of this makes logical sense to me, tbh, beyond tribalism.

That link you posted is an example of the rewriting of history, because those policies were "forged under Obama" which the blaming of Trump for them, conveniently neglects to mention. Same for the cages, war mongering, and divisiveness in our society today.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/anti-muslim-policies-forged-un...

Which health officials claimed acknowledging the virus was xenophobic? And it turns out celebrating in the streets is basically completely safe.

That’s a politician, not a health official.

Read the full article for the quote by Dr. Henry Chen.

He works for a private health care network. He’s not a health official.

True, perhaps it was just that Democrat Mayor who used the word of a doctor to add validity to his assessment and criticize the response of the previous administration.

Ok so to be clear, your best evidence of “many other health officials who claimed that acknowledging the virus was xenophobic” is a mayor citing comments made by a privately employed MD?

> And it turns out celebrating in the streets is basically completely safe.

You wouldn't know it walking around the well-to-do section of the liberal city I live in.

I live in NYC and the streets and parks have been packed every nice day since last May.

I was excited to come across this today on Audible and held off buying it for these same reasons. Several points in that description - politicized for the masses - were right then wrong then right again, and blamed based on voting patterns.

Pandemics are complex, nature does what it wants, and blaming one politician for what everyone else was doing doesn’t help.

Given you are talking about evidence vs memory, you should probably cite... anything you’re claiming here.

I added the link to my comment. Just Google it, there dozens of better sources.

Nobody said acknowledging the virus was xenophobic, the problem was assuming that all east-Asian-looking people might have the virus and therefore you should avoid Chinatown.

Also one of Trump's first acts in office was to institute a pointless Muslim travel ban, so people can be forgiven if they thought this China ban was leveraging a convenient excuse to ban another group of ethnicities he didn't like.